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It didn’t take long for the chess match between the Rays and Brewers to get underway.
Tampa Bay surprised everybody by tapping Nick Martinez, not Drew Rasmussen, as the Game 1 starter, which allows the latter to start Game 2 on his normal rest routine.
Martinez was a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter for the Rays in the regular season, but he’s not of the same caliber or style as Rasmussen.
We tend to associate Game 1 starters, especially in the World Series, as live-armed aces who can overwhelm a lineup with swings and misses, but that’s just not Martinez’s music.
He pitches to contact, walks nobody and excels at getting batters to miss the barrel.
It’s a profile that can work over the course of a long season against a smorgasbord of opponents, but I have my doubts that Martinez’s pitch-to-wood approach will quiet Milwaukee’s relentless lineup.
At the very least, the margin for error is quite slim.
Unlike his counterpart, Jacob Misiorowski, or the pitchers behind him in the Rays’ rotation, Rasmussen and Freddy Peralta, Martinez just doesn’t have the get-out-of-dodge pitch if things are getting hairy.
And that’s a huge red flag, because the Brewers are perhaps the best team in baseball at putting pressure on the pitcher.
The Brewers work counts, spray the ball to all fields, and they have plenty of pop in their offense.
Unlike Tampa Bay, Milwaukee doesn’t have any black holes in its lineup. You have to be sharp from top to bottom, then do it all over again. That’s not easy for an ace, and it certainly is a daunting task for a pitcher with Martinez’s profile.
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By throwing Martinez in Game 1, the Rays are choosing to give the advantage to the Brewers and heap pressure on the home team. If Milwaukee can’t find a way to win this pitching matchup, their outlook for the series would be pretty dire.
It’s a savvy move from Kevin Cash, but the Brewers are well-equipped to answer the challenge and punish a starting pitcher who may be out of his depth on this stage.
The Play: Brewers -1.5 runs (+125, DraftKings)
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Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.